Now You're Family Too
by Kailean
Summary: This is a familyfriendship one shot based in the Sublime Awakenings universestory line. OC and Squee friendship.


**Now You're Family Too**

This is a family/friendship one shot based in the Sublime Awakenings universe/story line. If you haven't read that, Letta is basically the daughter of Squee's counselor at the Defective Head Meat Institute. She and her father took a liking to the boy, making his life less miserable. Only Letta belongs to me. Squee belongs to JV. Part of this was inspired by the song "Already There" by K's Choice. I think it sums up the problem of evil quite well.

"You died all alone. And I no longer pray. Cause if there were a God. He'd have let you stay."

Ages: Letta: 13, Squee: 10

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"I'll take a dozen daises, please."

"That'll be thirteen dollars and twenty cents, please." The flower shop cashier, a red-head in her late twenties, took an out held twenty from the little girl in the bright dress thats pattern matched the content of the store. She handed back appropriate change without any comments despite the younger boy waiting behind her who looked both nervous and guilty. They both looked too young and too dressed up to be wondering around the city by themselves. What was even more suspicious was the red speckles on the girl's dress, but she didn't appear to be hurt.

"Thanks." The girl turned around quickly, stuffing the money, uncounted, into a dainty, white purse and taking the little boy by the hand before exiting the store.

As soon as the door closed behind them, the boy spoke up in a weary tone. "Letta, we're gonna get in trouble. Maybe we should go back."

The girl didn't even bother looking back at him. She simply tightened her hold on his hand so that he couldn't escape. "Squee, you worry too much. That's probably why people pick on you, ya know. Besides, if we go back, we really will get in trouble.

Looking slightly up at her curled, tangled mess of blond hair, Squee sighed, knowing she was right. But they were going to get in even i more /i trouble when they were caught running away, probably. Still, he wasn't about to risk breaking their link to walk through the city all by himself. "I think you broke that boy's nose."

The two came to a stop, waiting for the light at the cross walk as cars zoomed by in front of them.

Letta smiled at the busy street, both excited and slightly afraid at the prospect of having broken her Priest's nephew's nose. "Probably. There was a lot of blood." She shrugged. "He had it coming, though." She had a feeling that her father wouldn't be sending her or Squee back to Church Camp next year, something she didn't feel particularly sad about. Most of the kids there had always been stuck-up hypocrites, and the boys were particularly mean. She had a suspicion that the meaner a kid was, the more likely their parents were to force them into Church activities. It was almost like they were trying to purge them of demons or something.

"Yeah, I guess." Squee looked down at the grass growing through cracks in the concert, thinking that it would remind his friend, Pepito, of the fleeting nature of human creation, society and morality in the face of the driving growth and destruction that was nature, as the other boy claimed such things always did.

He was feeling worse about the trouble the older girl was surely going to be in than about the nose of the boy who had picked on him for being a "cry-baby" when the group had been instructed to make Mother's Day cards for the upcoming holiday. Last year, his had come back "return to sender" with a little side note, claiming, "We don't have a child". "Uh, thanks, Letta. For sticking up for me."

"Sure thing, kid. I can't believe he was even messing with you anyway. He's like two whole years older than you. A year younger than me, but still. He's just as big."

The boy rolled his eyes at the "kid" comment, looking in the direction of the coming cars for a moment to let the draft they made blow dark brown bangs from his line of view. She had been calling him "kid" for a month now, ever since she turned thirteen, revealing in official teendom, even though she still looked and acted like a pre-teen.

When the light finally allowed them to pass, he constantly looked back and forth both ways as Letta pulled him by the hand, ready for anything life might throw his way, knowing that whoever was pitching liked to toss him curve balls. "Where are we going?"

"Just somewhere." She glanced around at familiar landmarks. "We're almost there. So, why don't you believe?"

"What?"

"You didn't pray with the others back at the camp."

"Oh, that. Well, it's not exactly that I don't believe. I'm not really sure what I believe anymore. But, I guess I just have a problem with faith. You know, with believing unquestioningly that there is this all powerful, all knowing, loving God that is always up there looking out for everyone. I mean, just look at my life."

"You sound kind of angry. You know it's pointless to be angry at God, right?" She paused a few seconds, looking into the windows of a passing beauty salon, watching a pretty lady in black clothes having her equally black hair pulled back in a pony tail so that the underside of her head could be shaved. She quickly looked back in front of her when the woman glared at her distastefully from behind a Sandman comic. "There is no God."

"How do you know?"

The girl came made an acute turn at a small Church, continuing to the back, where she came to a stop at the gate to a connected cemetery. "We're here."

"A...a cemetery?" Squee stared ahead in shock, attempting to fight off the twinge of fear that naturally arose.

"Yeah. Come on. Don't be a baby." Lifting the rusted latch, Letta swung the gate open, making it squeak a little. She started in, but had to retrace her steps when she noticed the boy wasn't following. "Todd? Oh. I forgot. You see dead people, right?"

"Don't make fun." Squee forced himself to glare at the girl before looking around for any possible place that he might wait for her to come out of the cemetery.

Letta shook her head and sighed dramatically at the other's silly fear. "Just give me your hand."

"Letta, I don't know..."

"Well, I do." She grabbed his hand with her free one before he could come up with an excuse. "Come on. I come here all the time."

Biting his lip in worry, Squee was extra careful not to step on any of the graves as they zigzagged their way through the yard. The Scary Neighbor Man said that it was impolite to walk on the dead.

"Here." She stopped before a marble head stone. It was perfectly average, except that it had the statue of an angel in a flowing robe attached at the top. A jade rosary hung around the statue, weather-worn from three years of exposure to the elements. "This is how I know."

The boy gave her a confused look. "A grave?"

She nodded subtly."My mother's grave." The girl walked ahead, closer to the head stone. "Hi, Mom. I brought your favorite flowers. Remember the boy I told you about last time? This is Todd." She briefly looked back at the boy. "Say 'hi', Todd."

"Ummm...He-hello." He made a weak, uncertain waving motion with his hand in the direction of the grave.

"You can't tell anyone about this, okay? Not even Dad."

"Okay." His brow furrowed in confusion, not knowing what "this" was, even though he had just agreed to keep it secret.

Satisfied, Letta looked back to the grave thoughtfully before speaking in a soft voice. "My mom had more faith than anyone. She was perfect: kind, beautiful, smart. She loved everyone. She went to Church twice a week, until she got sick. Even then, she still went every Sunday and had me go for her on Wednesdays. She prayed every day for God to let her get better, not for herself, but for me and Dad. And we prayed for her too. She said that if we just trusted him, God would take care of her, take care of everything. I believed her." A tear rolled down the girl's cheek and her next words were chocked out in a pained voice."I believed so much." There was a long pause before she seemed to recover some. "I was in Church when she died. I buried my confirmation rosary with her, and I haven't prayed since." She looked back to the grave, voice softening even more. "If there was a God, he would have let you stay."

Squee didn't say a word. There i were /i no words. He blinked and felt several tears fall from his eyes before taking several careful steps forward, wrapping his arms around Letta.

She let out a surprised sob before returning the embrace full force, burying her face in the shorter boy's neck, even though the height difference made it a little awkward. After several minutes, she finally raised her head, releasing the boy to wipe her tears away resolutely. She sniffed a couple more times before speaking in a sober voice. "I've never told anyone about that before. Anyone but Mom." She watched him wipe his own tears away, warmed by his empathy, before taking his hand. "Come here."

Todd watched Letta with wide, curious eyes as she led him to the head stone, dropping to her knees directly in front of it and pulling him down with her. Knowing that someone was buried directly below them made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "What are you-"

"Shh." The young teen dumped out a bouquet of old, dried out daises from a glass vase at the base of the head stone, returning it with the new ones in place. She then dug in her purse, producing, at length, a recent photo of Todd and herself at a local park, arms around each other's necks. She gave it an approving glance before placing a single kiss upon its surface, then lifting an old, waterproof picture frame from its place beside the vase. In it was a picture of herself from a previous year, a skool picture that her father had placed there. Instead of removing it, she simply slipped the new picture in on top before returning the frame.

"There. Now you're family too. Mom always wanted me to have a little bother. I'm sure she would love you." She smiled. "I mean she i does /i . She does love you. Right, Mom?" She gave Todd a quick glance. "See? She does. Now, whenever you feel sad because of your parents, you can talk to Mom, our mom, and know that you're loved." Looking back to the grave, she smiled as an idea came to her. Crawling even closer to the head stone, she lifted the rosary from the statue before making her way back to Todd, and placing it around his neck. "There. Now you can talk to her at the institute too. That one was her favorite, from Ireland."

"Letta...I...I can't take this." His eyes were as shiny as her own, threatening to overflow.

"Of course you can. You're her son. She wants you to keep it for her. Whenever you need her, just hold it, and she'll listen." Her hand had made its way onto the boy's shoulder, but her gaze was currently directed at the afternoon clouds. "If you can hear that bear, maybe you can hear her too."

His hand slowly reached up to grip the light green cross at the end of the beaded necklace, now hanging against his white, pressed shirt. There was a moment of silence as he tried, and failed, not to cry. A few tears fail onto the cross before he wiped them off, gently letting it fall from his hand, back against his chest. When he looked back up, tears streaked the girls face as well, but she was smiling at him. More tears fell as he returned the closed mouthed smile before hugging her tightly. "Thank you." A sob caught in his throat before he continued in a whisper into her hair. "Thank you so much. I...I love you."

Hugging back, the teen smiled as the crazy little boy's tears fail into her shoulder. Maybe he i was /i crazy, but she wouldn't have him any other way. If he wasn't crazy, he wouldn't have understood about God and her mother. He wouldn't have been able to be her little brother. "I love you too, bro."


End file.
